What is Niko building?

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Bayfield Gopher said:
Niko already has a system in place. He needs to step up his recruitment next season. At this point, I struggle to believe the talent level is better than what Ben brought to MN. And issues are starting to show.

Niko's honeymoon period could be short lived unless some things change; mainly FT and FG shooting, find a way to beat zones, better depth with the main hope being Omot's return. And bring in better talent than what could return next season.
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If Gopher Fans turn on Medved quickly then they deserve the horror they will get when he is gone. In what world do we have the right to demand anything but a slow build? The only time anyone cares about us is when we fire someone.
 

Dave H said:
If Gopher Fans turn on Medved quickly then they deserve the horror they will get when he is gone. In what world do we have the right to demand anything but a slow build? The only time anyone cares about us is when we fire someone.
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In what world do fans not have the right to challenge decades of garbage?
 

Dave H said:
If Gopher Fans turn on Medved quickly then they deserve the horror they will get when he is gone. In what world do we have the right to demand anything but a slow build? The only time anyone cares about us is when we fire someone.
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It's a lot of the usual suspects but sad there is already grumbling 4 games into his first season. I get that the turnaround window has gotten insanely short in college athletics but after 4 games is ridiculous.
 

Dave H said:
If Gopher Fans turn on Medved quickly then they deserve the horror they will get when he is gone. In what world do we have the right to demand anything but a slow build? The only time anyone cares about us is when we fire someone.
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With Niko's arrival came high expectations. Go back and read the volumes of posts confirming it. Compare that to Ben when he was hired as once fans got over the initial shock the majority realized it would be a slow build, at best.

Unlike Ben, Niko is a proven commodity and along with it comes higher expectations. The issue thus far seems to be the lack of quality players, not Niko. And its starting to show. But this is his squad.

We will know more after the next few weeks as the level of competition rises.
 




MNVCGUY said:
It's a lot of the usual suspects but sad there is already grumbling 4 games into his first season. I get that the turnaround window has gotten insanely short in college athletics but after 4 games is ridiculous.
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Coming within 1 point of losing at home to one of the worst teams in the nation may play a role.
 

In this present era of D1 basketball you don't build, you just out bid for the best players. Everyone under that is picking up scraps from the table. The Gophers are scrap pickers, not out bidders.
 

FinnGopher said:
In this present era of D1 basketball you don't build, you just out bid for the best players. Everyone under that is picking up scraps from the table. The Gophers are scrap pickers, not out bidders.
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I think we can both build and bid. We are going to have to use players that are not bigger than the program and augment them with a few rentals who are exceptional. The key is to maintain a good core roster of kids that know the program and love the coach and culture. We can afford those guys and if we do keep them, we can afford a couple higher end guys as well. I think you can go out and tell the money guys that we need these two guys and it will cost a couple million and they might give you the money. If you say, we need a new roster, forget it, nobody is going to fund that.

Coach is going to have to get one good group across goal line with a nice run in conference/NCAAs and we are off and running.
 



I may have missed it - is there a basketball GM for the Gophers? Lots of schools have'em these days. Take the money part of the equation of roster construction off the sole responsibility of the coach. A GM must know the market value of their own players (which will fluctuate based on performance), target players on other teams that would be a fit both skill-wise and budget-wise (in close consultation with the coach), and I assume have some responsibility for finding sources of revenue that would allow maintaining or increasing the payroll.

It's so much different than it was...
 


Bayfield Gopher said:
With Niko's arrival came high expectations. Go back and read the volumes of posts confirming it. Compare that to Ben when he was hired as once fans got over the initial shock the majority realized it would be a slow build, at best.

Unlike Ben, Niko is a proven commodity and along with it comes higher expectations. The issue thus far seems to be the lack of quality players, not Niko. And its starting to show. But this is his squad.

We will know more after the next few weeks as the level of competition rises.
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I see so now if Niko has a bad first season it is justifiable to turn on him? Jesus we have maybe the most fickle and dumb fanbase around...

On the football board we mock Nebraska fans for their unreal expectations...but at least they have a history with which to have such arrogance. This crap is 100x worse.
 




bga1 said:
I think we can both build and bid. We are going to have to use players that are not bigger than the program and augment them with a few rentals who are exceptional. The key is to maintain a good core roster of kids that know the program and love the coach and culture. We can afford those guys and if we do keep them, we can afford a couple higher end guys as well. I think you can go out and tell the money guys that we need these two guys and it will cost a couple million and they might give you the money. If you say, we need a new roster, forget it, nobody is going to fund that.

Coach is going to have to get one good group across goal line with a nice run in conference/NCAAs and we are off and running.
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Agree. What is happening everywhere in P4 programs is that players who aren’t getting major minutes look to transfer, mostly down a level. They need to pay market value for their core starters or they leave, too. If a player gets too good, you may not be able to afford them.

I am describing the norm - not just a Minnesota thing. The core players who are returning are currently low budget relative to other programs.
 

Dave H said:
If Gopher Fans turn on Medved quickly then they deserve the horror they will get when he is gone. In what world do we have the right to demand anything but a slow build? The only time anyone cares about us is when we fire someone.
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Bayfield Gopher said:
With Niko's arrival came high expectations. Go back and read the volumes of posts confirming it. Compare that to Ben when he was hired as once fans got over the initial shock the majority realized it would be a slow build, at best.

Unlike Ben, Niko is a proven commodity and along with it comes higher expectations. The issue thus far seems to be the lack of quality players, not Niko. And its starting to show. But this is his squad.

We will know more after the next few weeks as the level of competition rises.
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Thank you to both of you. You both are right. As I said in another thread, there should be high expectations. Minnesota has great potential. (But as Clem would say, 85 percent of people die with potential. 💀) The expectations have to be grounded in realism, though.

Some have said that, from the standpoint of both style and substance, Niko is comparable to John Beilein. I think that's a good comparison. Beilein took over at Michigan after Amaker was there for six years (!) without making the NCAAs once. Yes, even Michigan can fall on hard times. It was a rebuild, and the first year was rough (10-22 / 5-13). Then the rest was history. I know it's theoretically easier to rebuild these days with the portal, yada, yada. But at the end of the day, you're still in a rebuild and trying to create momentum with a heavy, stationary object, and competing against other programs trying to do the same thing.

As builtbadgers used to say, you'll tend to know by year 3 what you have in a coach.
 


BarnBurner said:
In what world do fans not have the right to challenge decades of garbage?
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We went and got a guy with a proven track record of building programs went to the NCAA three of the last four years, built and re built that program, put a couple guys in the NBA and showed an ability to develop a roster in season and turn guys into star players who couldn't see the court when they first got here. He's 4-1 right now, maybe give him a year before the Nigerian firing squad lines up?
 

The Deliberate Stranger said:
We went and got a guy with a proven track record of building programs went to the NCAA three of the last four years, built and re built that program, put a couple guys in the NBA and showed an ability to develop a roster in season and turn guys into star players who couldn't see the court when they first got here. He's 4-1 right now, maybe give him a year before the Nigerian firing squad lines up?
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Reread. I am not challenging Niko.
 



I had previously wrote that Niko hasn't had a big improvement in year one at any of his stops. I don't think he is a flashy recruiter, I think he is successful based on year over year improvements and eventual conference and tourney successes, and turning some "average wings" into NBA players.

At Furman they went 7-24 the year before Niko, 9-21 his first year. By year 4 they went 23-11.
Drake was 17-17 the year before Niko and 17-17 with him for one year.
At CSU, the Rams were 11-21 the year before and 12-20 in Niko's first year. They were 20-12 in year 2. And like we all know, had them in the tourney in 3 of his last 4 seasons there.

Growing a program at a place like Minnesota will take some time. Very hard conference, average NIL budget at best, weather issues, etc. There is also a history of the best in state players mostly leaving the state to play basketball.

Bo Ryan at Wisconsin, the year before 19-13, with Bo 18-11.
Even Tom Izzo, who took over a 22-6 team that lost a great backcourt of Respert and Snow, only managed a 16-16 record in year one.
 
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march madness said:
I had previously wrote that Niko hasn't had a big improvement in year one at any of his stops. I don't think he is a flashy recruiter, I think he is successful based on year over year improvements and eventual conference and tourney successes, and turning some "average wings" into NBA players.

At Furman they went 7-24 the year before Niko, 9-21 his first year. By year 4 they went 23-11.
Drake was 17-17 the year before Niko and 17-17 with him for one year.
At CSU, the Rams were 11-21 the year before and 12-20 in Niko's first year. They were 20-12 in year 2. And like we all know, had them in the tourney in 3 of his last 4 seasons there.

Growing a program at a place like Minnesota will take some time. Very hard conference, average NIL budget at best, weather issues, etc. There is also a history of the best in state players mostly leaving the state to play basketball.

Bo Ryan at Wisconsin, the year before 19-13, with Bo 18-11.
Even Tom Izzo, who took over a 22-6 team that lost a great backcourt of Respert and Snow, only managed a 16-16 record in year one.
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These are now apples to oranges comparisons. The past did not have NIL and a wild west, no rules, structure. We cannot use the past as a hope for the future. To win, in this era, you have to be able to pay the players that you long for. Then, you have to keep paying higher prices as the players improve.
 

FinnGopher said:
These are now apples to oranges comparisons. The past did not have NIL and a wild west, no rules, structure. We cannot use the past as a hope for the future. To win, in this era, you have to be able to pay the players that you long for. Then, you have to keep paying higher prices as the players improve.
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Well, we have no billionaire giving us money ala Oregon and Indiana, so we are screwed based on your logic. I think one can still compete with average money. CSU is not the big ten, but he built a successful program with much less money than we have.
 


march madness said:
Well, we have no billionaire giving us money ala Oregon and Indiana, so we are screwed based on your logic. I think one can still compete with average money. CSU is not the big ten, but he built a successful program with much less money than we have.
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I have to be honest. This current "system" of there essentially being no system/no rules, unrestricted free agency every year and even during the season now, and success based on whether you have a billionaire that's going to give you billions of dollars is probably unsustainable on several levels. Even if it turns out to be sustainable in some way, it's still pretty stupid, and it's hard to be a big college basketball fan in this absurdity. That's simply why there are fewer college basketball fans these days and more games are being played in front of emptier and emptier venues as a general rule. I'm going to cheer for Niko and the Gophers to be successful, and I have every confidence that he's the right person for this job, but it's just not as important to me as it used to be.
 

I don't like players moving teams, just like most others. But for the most part the blue bloods that were at the top of the rankings are still there. There still are non-blue bloods like Purdue and Houston, mostly with inhouse players, there every year as well.

Us gopher fans are probably hurt more than the average college basketball fan because we suffered with Ben Johnson for 4 years, and the one year he was to have a really good team, most of them left for more money at other schools. I believe Niko only lost Tonje to NIL to Wisconsin as any significant player to leave in his 7 years there. When he left CSU, We got JCJ and Evans went to UNC partly for NIL.

The amount of starters that left MN in 23-24, isn't the norm, unless a coach is leaving. That was a combination of an athletic department and coach acting like blockbuster, and not forseeing what a 72 year old Jim Laraneta could see. And it was also beyond money, there are players everywhere who stay with the home school for less money if they have confidence in that coach or the program. There is a new coaching landscape, not only do you have to recruit and coach, but you now have to bring in NIL donations. It's not for everyone.

I doubt Braden Smith is getting top 10 NIL money, but he's not about to leave Purdue. As far as billionaires, there are a few examples, like Cuban giving Indiana football a huge donation that can tip the scales in your favor, but that's an exception, not the rule.
 


I don't have a clue what he is or isn't building. Way too soon to say. Based on what I've seen so far, it's the usual collection of hodge podge players to which we've grown accustomed.
The distinction with a difference is that his system looks pretty organized. Players are actually cutting, there's some ball movement, some spacing, some free throwing, some attention to detail. It looks pretty unfamiliar around these parts.

If he can get some talent in here, we might have something.
 

I’ll give him three years. They don’t have the talent to compete now. He needs this year and two more to be able to have a chance to turn it around. If after your three it still looks like crap then he’s gotta go.
 

Bad Gopher said:
I have to be honest. This current "system" of there essentially being no system/no rules, unrestricted free agency every year and even during the season now, and success based on whether you have a billionaire that's going to give you billions of dollars is probably unsustainable on several levels. Even if it turns out to be sustainable in some way, it's still pretty stupid, and it's hard to be a big college basketball fan in this absurdity. That's simply why there are fewer college basketball fans these days and more games are being played in front of emptier and emptier venues as a general rule. I'm going to cheer for Niko and the Gophers to be successful, and I have every confidence that he's the right person for this job, but it's just not as important to me as it used to be.
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In my opinion, might as well just watch the pros from here on out. At least they have contracts, salary caps and rules in place. They would destroy their product with the kind of roster churn happening in college.
 

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